Taylor's empirical evaluation finds the Fed's mortgage-backed-security purchases had a very small impact: although mortgage rates fell after the purchases, controlling for market perceptions of risk on those securities shows the rate movements were caused by other factors, not the purchases — the same being true of interbank money-market spreads.

causalpending

Speaker

John Taylor

Evidence Quote

mortgage rates did fall and so you could be tempted to say that those purchases drove down the rates but if you look more carefully the movement of the rates is probably due to something else and I have some data that shows that... when you bring those risk numbers into account the purchases of the securities by the Fed doesn't do very much at all it's caused by other factors

Source

John Taylor on the Financial Crisis 07/20/2009EconTalk
Created: 6/15/2026, 9:20:12 AM

My Notes

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